


The secret spanish rose garden

by kitkattaylor



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 08:01:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17894594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkattaylor/pseuds/kitkattaylor
Summary: I read the secret garden and want to go to spain





	The secret spanish rose garden

Its Dan’s secret. The rose garden, deep in the shadows in the twisted trees at the top of the hill. He’d just happened upon it. It was only his second day, and he’d gone wandering, knocking a stick rhythmically against the passing trees. He’d already left his phone a cold brick in his draw, and was soaking up the sun like a lizard. He felt like wandering so he wandered through the trees until the trees became near impenetrable, but that was when something deep inside him began to resonate. The waves crashed against the rocks below and his feet pulled him forward, threading through the trunks and branches, nimble-bodied like he hadn’t grown up from being the child who liked to climb trees. He manoeuvred his lanky self and then there it was, strange but beautiful, a neat little rose garden right in the midst of all the trees.

The roses were tall, and in full bloom, and Dan knelt and sniffed them and held them gently, and looked up at the canopy of trees and wondered how on earth they were surviving in these shadows. Whose garden was it? Did they battle through the trees every day just to garden? It felt a bit like trespassing, like he’d skipped the fence into someone’s private space. He looked over his shoulder, even, but he was alone, it was just him and the birds and cicadas.

There was red, of course, and there was white, and yellow and pink. Even if he’d had his phone, he wouldn’t have wanted to photograph it. The scene felt so delicate Dan practically tip-toed around it. The trees seemed taller here; they shot up wherever they pleased, and the roses, though still gardened into a square, nestled around them, leaning affectionately against their chalky white bark. The light was speckled and dancing as the leaves rustled in the breeze. The dusty ground kicked up around his shoes as he stepped forward, drawn by the sound of the waves below. Two trees leaned toward each other like curtains and Dan stepped between them. The air was so spacious, here. And the sun was so nice on his faces, and the roses so sweet.

~

There’s something about a holiday that detaches his sense of being. At first, he feels a little wobbly, with his ears still bursting from the flight. But then he settles and his limbs seem to soften and he’s sleepy but content and altogether the best version of himself. Time exists in an alternate dimension, and this time there isn’t even the creeping doom of the return date home. There is no countdown ticking slyly in the background. Technically, this isn’t even a holiday. Or, at least, it doesn’t have to be. Dan doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

Neither does his mum, for that matter, so it’s not an age thing, or a _Dan_ thing. His mum divorced his dad _blah blah_ and had some kind of mid-life crisis and suddenly decided that the thing to do was move to Northern Spain. Apparently it had always been on her wish list. So Dan came to check up on her, make sure she hasn’t _actually_ lost the plot, and now....he’s here, two weeks later. Maybe it had been subconscious...the whole... _not-buying-a-ticket-home_ thing.

It’s a beautiful house. Tiny, but gorgeous, nestled in lush green grass with a pebbled path and blue shutters like a fairy-tale. Inside it’s dark and cool and barely furnished, but his mum doesn’t seem to care that the rooms feel more like a cave because she’s outside for breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, and in-between she’s also outside gardening, or reading, or embroidering a tablecloth, because apparently that’s been on the wish list too. But maybe Dan doesn’t care much either. When he first arrived it was dark, and when he woke up and looked out the kitchen window onto the valley of mountains- His heart had started a new line and beat a little fiercer and the walls felt too close and the room too dark. He practically burst outdoors to where his mum was already perched, feet on a pretty wrought-iron chair, eating a peach with peach juice dribble down her chin. Dan joined her, though it was all very odd. Maybe he didn’t know his mum at all.

If you turn right from the house you walk down the slope to the nearest town, full of white-washed shuttered houses cascading down the hill to the main beach. Walk straight and in approximately thirteen steps you reach the rickety stairs down to what thus far has been Dan’s personal cove. The wooden steps are rickety, perhaps the reason Dan hasn’t yet seen anyone else on this strip of sand. But that only serves to encourage Dan, who rather unlike his home-self (but apparently this is his Spanish-self), enjoys waking up before 10am and going for a morning swim at 9.57. (Maybe it’s because Spanish-Dan enjoys an afternoon siesta; it’s tradition, is it not?)

He’s full-on holiday-mode today. Bug sunglasses and beach bag and flip-flops. In his bag is towels, suncream and a book, and that’s it. He hasn’t even packed his phone for music purposes, deciding a bit of silent meditation will be nice. The waves are breezy today, and the grey rocks behind the stairs are damp where he skims his hand. But the sand is soft and warm as ever, and the first thing he does is slip off his shoes and wiggle his toes. Normally he would wait to be hotter, even sweaty, but today he whips off his top the second he puts down his bag, and having his swim trunks on like shorts, walks straight into the sea. It is undeniably cold, and the initial pinch and sting of it still takes the standard flapping of arms and frog legs to warm up, but once his blood has adjusted the sea is so calm, and the skies so wide and still, and Dan doesn’t hesitate to dip his hair back and feel the fresh fingers of the ocean massage into his scalp. He tips up and floats like a starfish, just floating, and bobbing – and floating, and bobbing – and entirely not caring if he gets dragged out to sea never to return.

The sand thuds softly as Phil jumps down. The boy in the sea can’t hear him anyway, not with his ears underwater like that, presumably listening to the comforting hum of the earth. But still Phil treads quietly, and lays out his towel discreetly, and lies down carefully, only to then turn the music on from his speakers and purposefully wait. It’s not just the cute boy that has him interested; he’s never seen anyone else on his beach.

When Dan spies the new lump of a figure on the beach, his heart squeezes in a vice like grip. A little startled, a little disappointed, maybe even a little angry. He wants to swat the body away like an annoying fly, brush it up into a dustpan. He watches him for a while, half submerged in the water like a very not scary shark (his heart is going double-time at the prospect of leaving the water.) But eventually, without his swimming around, he grows cold, and also a little defiant. He’ll read his book as intended. Maybe he and the stranger won’t have to speak a word.

The stranger doesn’t look up as Dan awkwardly rises from the sea. He feels too keenly all his exposed naked flesh and desperately steps towards his towel, quickly wrapping it around his shoulders like a cape. He stands there, dripping, for a moment, when all of a sudden a low voice breaks into the air.

“You should be careful of thieves.”

Dan takes a moment to ingest the words, and then stops himself from blurting out an unintelligible ‘ _what_ ’, instead managing a somewhat confident ‘I haven’t got anything to steal.’ It’s true, his bag is just towels and a dog-eared book.

It’s with great apprehension that the stranger turns his head. Dan feels ridiculous and like his heart is very loud as the man studies him quietly. He’s squinting in the sun, and his hair is black and his skin very pale. Definitely not Spanish. I mean, he spoke first in English.

“How did you know I was English?”

The man smiles – or smirks – slowly. He’s still looking over Dan a little too keenly for Dan’s liking.

“Well, you’re wearing your towel like that for starters.”

To make him hotter in the near afternoon heat, Dan feels himself blush. He fidgets and grumbles and shrugs off his towel as if he’d never had a problem being half-naked in front of a stranger. Decisively laying it down, he plonks on to it, still all too aware of his mass of flesh.

“It’s called _drying_ ,” he retorts a smidge too defensively. “And I’m quite tanned, you know, you’re the one that looks glaringly English between us.” He pauses. “You are English, right?”

“Yes,” the man laughs, now sat up with one knee bent and his arm outstretched against it. Dan fusses shoving on his sunglasses, as if they could do anything to hide his nakedness, especially now he’d gone and drawn attention to his skin. “Manchester. And you? Londoner, right?”

“ _No_ , Reading,” Dan says, this time with just a little too much satisfaction. The man’s speaker plays out a tinny song – it’s familiar, but Dan can’t put his finger on it. The growing bubble of silence is awkward enough without the man’s sharp eyes still staring at him (and the way his fringe is flipped onto his forehead, and the nice shape of his arms, and the rattle of thoughts in Dan’s head trying to place this damn song-) So, with reluctance, he speaks again.

“Sooo.” He taps his fingers on his knees, trying to look calm and confident where he sits. “You on holiday?”

The man lets out a breathy laugh. “No, are you?”

“No,” Dan replies a bit quickly. He is and he isn’t. In this moment, he decides being a tourist looks uncool. Black-haired boy dips his head and studies Dan in that curious, smirk-y way again. He speaks slowly, in a considering sort of fashion.

“My parents just moved here. We’ve moved around a lot, from England, to Scotland, France, Greece... Now here. They’re artists, I’m tagging along. Been here a month now.”

Having swallowed down the childish urge to blurt ‘ _Oh? Mine too!’_ at his parents’ move, Dan lifts his chin and says, “And what are you?” Which instantly sounds awful. He draws his knees to his chest and rests his head against them, trying to soften his character. The man is still smiling a dopey, lop-sided smile and Dan tries to look interested when he replies (though he soon takes to checking the man out from behind his sunglasses.)

The man – _Phil,_ as he clumsily mid-sentence introduces (‘ _I’m ph- Er, Dan_ ,’ Dan had too clumsily replied) – talks about being a photographer, and studying in Cornwall, and having a blog and selling prints, and travelling with his brother who is still travelling, somewhere...and then he draws to a stop and Dan internally shakes himself because his eyes had got a little stuck on the breathing in and out of Phil’s chest.

“What?” Dan responds on instinct, and Phil does that little breathy laugh again. Apparently he’d took to playing with the sand at some point. He picks it up and lets it drain from his fist, which is kind of mesmerising now Dan has noticed (it’s not his fault, a handsome man is distracting.)

“No, I was just saying how I’ve been coming down here to capture the sunrise.” If Dan thought Phil’s confidence had faltered a little, in the next second all such thoughts are squashed. Phil looks up with a twinkle in his eye and the breeze in his hair. “Maybe you could join me one morning.”

“I barely know you,” comes another of Dan’s brilliant knee-jerk reactions. Maybe Phil looks put-out for a second, but the smile is back in a flash, and before Dan knows it a towel and a speaker and a boy-shaped being with twinkly eyes are shifting closer on the sand.

“N _o_ , I barely know _you_.”

“Er...”

“Dan.” (Is it concerning that just his name in Phil’s mouth makes Dan’s stomach drop?) Phil smiles almost daintily, now cross-legged and sat up straight. “Tell me about yourself.”

Dan can’t meet Phil’s eyes even through his sunglasses and he mumbles as he talks, fiddling with the towel edge and skirting around the whole _uni drop-out_ thing. He fills the ginormous _degree_ gap with funny stories about his jobs in retail, and selling hammers to children, and setting off alarms, and with such unwavering interest he finds his way onto talking about music, his piano, and on and on to his impassioned opinions on British politics, and feminist things, things possibly completely alien to Phil, being that he’s barely spoken a word more than ‘ _mmhm’_ this and ‘ _go on’_ that. Dan grinds to a halt with a definite scarlet on his cheeks. Lamely, and almost quivering with the sudden absence of his voice, he digs out his suncream.

“Okay, I’m going to read now,” Dan announces in the same voice he’d used at the start. He lies down suddenly and holds his book open too close to his face. He pretends not to hear the pathetic (but cute) little whine the man beside him appears to make. He also pretends not to notice, nor care, when his neighbouring towel shifts closer yet. Phil’s shadow looms over him and Dan lasts all of three seconds before huffing and slamming his book down.

It’s unnerving that Phil doesn’t flinch when he’s caught simply staring down at Dan. Perhaps if he weren’t so good looking Dan would find it creepy. As it is, it’s strange, but makes Dan’s breath catch in his chest regardless.

“Do you mind?”

“No,” he smiles. “Do you?”

“Well, yeah.”

Phil’s eyes skim over Dan’s cheeks where he’d dabbed on a little suncream. “I’m protecting you from getting sunburnt.”

Dan frowns. “You’re blocking my light.”

Surprisingly, Phil obliges and lies down, though he’s still disarmingly close. Dan raises his book once more but winds up reading the same sentence four times over. The music plays quietly between them, and the song is familiar again. Dan’s foot jiggles with his frustration, until finally it clicks. He hesitates before speaking softly, almost as if he doesn’t want to be heard, for his voice to slip through Phil’s conscious like the sand from his hand.  

“Muse?”

(Phil doesn’t hesitate and replies in the same soft manner.)

“Do you like it?”

“It’s not very relaxing beach music, Phil.”

There’s something powerful in the familiar use of Phil’s name. It feels like new territory. Neither of them move, still rigidly laying side by side, their faces turned to the sky. The beat of the music works its way beneath Dan’s skin and all of a sudden he’s feeling trapped in the stillness. The heat is hotter and it takes real concentration to keep his breathing natural. Why was he so cagey in the first place? A gorgeous boys rocks up in this paradise and Dan wasn’t immediately taken by the real-life fantasy?

“What are you doing?” Dan asks, and his voice comes out gravelly.

Phil’s pale arms had raised to the sky. “Counting freckles.”

Dan turns his head. As if Phil believed he were reading anyway. He watches for a moment, the arm of his sunglasses digging into his temple. Eventually Phil lowers his arms and turns his head too. Something in his eyes – which are blue, very blue – registers new information, and with it, as if he’d been waiting, he reaches out and touches Dan’s cheekbone with the tip of his finger.

“You have one...” he says softly, “...two.” He drops his hand to the sand between them. All of a sudden he looks impossibly sweet, literally biting his lip, and so painfully obviously into in Dan. In a gay way. A very, very gay way.

“Do you want to swim?” Phil asks. Dan twists his lips a little but allows the book to be plucked from his stomach. Phil gets to his feet, tears off his shirt, and offers his hand to Dan. He wiggles his fingers, though it’s not necessary. Dan has already made up his mind. (The new lovely expanse of skin helps somewhat.)

“But what about our stuff? Don’t you have things to be stolen?”

Phil’s head is directly where the sun is, so Dan doesn’t have to squint to see the odd, amused expression that graces his face. “Only my heart,” he says around a smile, and though Dan’s body erupts in feeling he covers it with an eye roll so exaggerated Phil laughs out loud. He grips Dan’s hand with sudden strength and Dan is quite pulled to standing. They’re near nose to nose when Dan steadies himself. Phil slides off Dan’s glasses and Dan is certain he’s about to be kissed- but, no. Phil turns away instead and guides Dan towards the sea. Dan is way conscious of his sweaty palms, but Phil doesn’t drop his hand until he’s splashed into the ocean, arms open for Dan to follow. Dan blinks away the image of Phil’s back (tall, lean), and remembers to cross his arms over his chest.

Dan wades in and makes a show of shivering. They swim briefly in circles and when Phil’s eyes grow heavy Dan practically shouts ‘I can touch the floor!’, though his chin gets lost in the water. Phil copies and fake drowns because he’s maybe an inch shorter, then kicks Dan gently with his foot. Dan’s nudged out further into the deep and splashes Phil lightly in retaliation. Only lightly, because they really don’t know each other that well yet, though it’s strangely thrilling how easy they get along.

Phil’s eyes are growing heavy again so Dan goes to challenge Phil to underwater forward rolls (which he can undoubtedly beat him in), but Phil sees his mouth open and hooks his foot to Dan’s ankle, urging him closer. Dan swims in one movement up to him, though his heart is lodged in his throat. It’s not that kissing a stranger is anything new, but if Dan’s honest, all of his first kisses haven’t been sober. And there’s something about _this_ stranger that is especially nerve-wracking. (As if he sees more of him. As if he’s not really a stranger at all.)

Phil doesn’t talk for a moment and Dan begins to find their bobbing a bit silly. Phil’s own heart had been in his throat, though he swallows it down and gathers his thoughts and feelings.

“You’re so pretty.”

It’s strangely pure and innocent. It makes Dan’s lips twitch with a smile. He sighs without meaning to, and his eyes flick away and back.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t want to say _noo I’m not_ because then you’ll go _yes you are_ and we’ll get stuck in a vortex, and I don’t want to say _thank you_ because that suggests I agree.”

“You don’t agree?”

Phil says it so plainly and genuinely that Dan rolls his eyes again.

“ _You’re_ pretty,” he argues, and blushes. The grin that spreads on Phil’s face is enough to make Dan want to get eaten by a shark (not that there are sharks in Spain. He doesn’t think.) He does duck down underwater and hides. Phil’s laugh bubbles on the surface and then a pair of hands are pulling Dan back up. Fingers push between his loosely and Phil smiles and Dan decides he’s ready, thinks _yes, kiss me now,_ but Phil draws back, slinking away to sit on the shoreline.

Dan’s almost offended. He has to withdraw his pout quickly (though he thinks Phil notices.) He sinks under the water again, peeking out with his eyes. Phil lounges against the shore, his chest visible and the waves lapping at his trunks. Dan wishes he had his sunglasses back, because the way the water has wet the hairs on Phil’s chest is possibly the sexiest thing he’s ever seen in real life. Phil raises his eyebrows.

“Come here, pretty.”

Dan rises up to speak. “You sound a bit like Sméagol.”

Phil shrugs. Dan can see his legs are spread under the shallow water. He’s hot all over, and feels stupidly shy and coy, so with his eyes following his fingers as they trail in the water, he shuffles over and knees between Phil’s legs. The sand is silky yet rough on his knees and the sun beats down on his chest.

“I love your hair.”

His voice is deep again. “Curly,” Dan says, eyes still lowered. He picks up one such curl and twists it on his forehead, face scrunching up in obvious disdain.

“I noticed when you were talking, and you were so cute,” he nudges Dan’s legs with his leg, “and _pretty,_ and I’ve never found the way someone talks so attractive.”

“Inane rambling?” Dan cocks his head.

It must surprise Phil when Dan suddenly moves, because his words catch in his throat and his eyes widen. Dan settles in a straddle across Phil’s hips and places his arms expectantly around Phil’s neck. Now _he_ raises his eyebrows, and that does it because Phil lurches forward with boyish excitement and kisses all over Dan’s neck. At first it’s excited and sporadic and adoring in a way that makes Dan laugh, but then Phil moves impossibly closer, and their wet skin collides, and the sun is almost scorching on Dan’s back. Phil works deeper kisses into Dan’s skin and it feels so stupidly good Dan finds himself moaning, his arms tightening around Phil and head tilting back into the rays of sun. Hands slide around his waist to the small of his back, and soon fingers are dipping beneath the hem of his trunks, skimming the soft, sensitive skin side to side as the water rocks and splashes them.

Dan is more than lost in the pleasure and soft lapping of water - But a hand running down his chest stirs him, and he pushes back from Phil, slithering back under the water.

Phil is panting, his lips kissable and body slumped back where he leans on his hands. Dan watches as all evidence of Dan’s body is washed and dragged away from the sand. Phil looks so ridiculously pleased Dan has to hide his smile under the water.

“I need to dry off now,” Dan states plainly, his heart racing. Phil nods. He stands with water gushing down his legs and steps footprints back into the sand. Dan follows wearily.

“I mean it.”

Phil holds up his hands. Dan can feel the eyes tracking him as he exits the water, and he tries not to be too awkward about it. He’s got Phil’s compliments to bolster him, but sudden laughter makes him jump.

“Don’t laugh!” Dan whines. “That was my sexy bond girl moment.”

“You were perfect sexy bond girl,” Phil smiles affectively, taking Dan’s waist in his hands and turning them. Dan pouts openly. Phil’s eyes flicker from his lips to something behind him. “But-“ He withdraws a piece of limp seaweed from Dan’s shoulder.

Dan hides his face in his hands. “Ugh.” He moves out of Phil’s space determinedly (because his hands were raised to do something sweet) and leans down for his towel. “What time is it?”

“11.30?”

“Ugh,” Dan repeats. “Okay, that’s okay. I said I’d be back for lunch.”

He plops back down on his towel, arm shielding his eyes. He hears as Phil lowers himself beside him and all too soon the sun is once again blocked, except this time there’s cold _dripping_ on his arm.

“Drying, Phil. Drying.”

“Don’t go, I haven’t kissed you yet.”

It’s so honest and unguarded that Dan finds it startling. He isn’t sure how to reply. Phil certainly has a way of catching him off-balance.

“You kissed me plenty,” he blinks over the top of his arm.

Phil settles on his front, chin resting where his arms are crossed. He blinks back across at Dan.

Why did Dan push him away in the sea? Was he really that concerned about lunch? (Well, his stomach was beginning to rumble...) He’d felt Phil withdraw from his neck, and the hand trailing his body, leading to something...and strangely, after two false starts and having shut down this third chance, Dan felt an unexplainable need to savour their first kiss. Dan has no saintly intentions, oh no, but when first kisses have always come so fast and easy, maybe there’s something in the waiting? Something thrilling, and when he looks at Phil more and more he gets this sense of already knowing him, or like he _will_ know him, and that they’ve got time. Maybe it’s the holiday-detachment-syndrome getting to him, the suspended time, or maybe he’s got heatstroke. But Phil feels like a name that could become important.

It’s not like Dan how he’s acting – _definitely_ heatstroke – but he drops his hand and nudges it into Phil’s, which was so temptingly left open in the sand beside him. Could it be possible that this has all just been two hours? It already seems difficult to remember his beach without the Phil-shaped lump disturbing its quiet. God, isn’t it funny to think back on just those two hours before when all the while Dan was living, Phil was living too? That Phil-shaped character is suddenly so embedded in his world view, and there’s a Phil-shape pushing itself into a large portion of his brain.

They lie in silence, drying remarkably quick in the near midday sun. All the while their hands play with each other, soft and exploring, feeling over the texture of each other’s palms. When the sun briefly goes behind cloud, Dan lies back and very seriously chooses songs to play out of Phil’s speakers. His little etched frown is of much amusement to Phil, and it’s another Dan-ism that Phil finds himself already fond of. He sits up and leans over Dan in the way he blocks the sun, but Dan doesn’t even bat an eyelash. He simply lifts one hand to Phil’s chest and places his fingertips there, loosely holding him back. It’s funny and sweet and Phil quite spontaneously takes that hand and kisses it.

When it gets to 11.50 Dan makes to leave, and by 11.57 (after protests of shirts being put back on, and Phil’s pressing up against Dan’s, and ghost kisses over shoulder-blades), they are trudging across the sand to the rickety steps, Phil carrying Dan’s bag, because Phil insisted.

“These stairs will be the death of me.”

“Good, then I can skinny-dip without pesky gay boys getting in my way.”

Dan smiles at the beat of silence. The voice that follows is humorously low.

“I would never get in your way.”

Dan reaches the top first and stares disapprovingly down at Phil through his sunglasses. Phil skips up to the top with a cheeky smile.

“Anyway, how are _you_ getting down there if the stairs have fallen through?”

“Well, you just said they’d be the death of you. I presumed you’d simply fallen on your clumsy ass.” It feels like they’ve reached an impossible familiarity already. “You burnt yourself, mate.” Dan sticks his handprint onto the red of Phil’s shoulder. Phil winces slightly.

“Oh, yeah,” he remarks, then draws his eyes back to Dan. He smiles slowly and taps Dan’s nose. “Well you burnt your nose.” Dan paws at his nose with two hands and Phil can’t be blamed for how his heart swells two sizes.

“Come dancing with me tonight.”

Be it a question or demand, it’s certainly in Phil-fashion, as Dan is learning. He takes his bag to stall for time and replies first with a sound like ‘Errmmhg’, before suggesting ‘Tomorrow?’ He did have plans to watch a movie with mum tonight, and if anything he’s beginning to feel a bit drained. It’s not that he’s not stupidly excited to more Phil-time. In fact, he’s already drafting their dates in his head; more sunbathing, and swimming, and walks into town, seafood restaurants and watching that sunrise.

“Tomorrow,” Phil confirms, and Dan is relieved for not having to explain himself. With today’s unusual and exciting turnaround, Dan feels even more detached than his usual sun-drenched mornings, especially now his feet are back on solid ground, and his mum is a few feet away, preparing the lunch they planned those two hours earlier.

“I’ll pick you up. Here-“ Phil takes Dan’s book from his bag and goes to write on the inside cover using the pencil Dan brought for notes, but Dan stops him. He turns to the chapter he’s currently on and Phil scribbles his number at the top. Dan’s chest flushes oddly. He’d just wanted something to mark their meeting, is all. That had been the page he was on.

Phil closes the book sharply and Dan doesn’t see the odd little heart sketched by Phil’s name until later. His mum might have glanced out the door – because it was 12.05 – and seen Dan’s back and a boy about his age in front of him. She might have seen the hesitant way they lingered before waving goodbye and smiled to herself but she let Dan shower quickly in peace and let him eat his lunch without questions too. After the movie was done come 11 o’clock, she rolled on her side and glanced at her boy the seat across from her.

“You met a boy today?”

It was still weird seeing his mum in Spain; it was like seeing her for the first time. But like water under a bridge, Dan was encouraged to move past things. It was nice having her attention in motherly ways, and for the both of them to leave their troubles in England. Maybe she felt like she was seeing Dan for the first time too.

“Maybe. Phil. He’s taking me dancing tomorrow.”

His mum scoffed. “You can’t dance.”

Dan promptly hit her with a pillow. There was a warm beat of silence.

“What will you wear?”

~

Phil had worn black but patterned socks and arrived with a rose in his mouth. The bar played jazz and samba interspersed with Madonna and Beyoncé, which after a couple drinks, got Dan really dancing (neither of them could dance at all) and he was grinding up against Phil, not that he thought Phil minded. They didn’t kiss. Phil kissed his cheek when he dropped him home. This morning they’re going to watch the sunrise, though Dan is groaning now his alarm is ringing. Only Phil could make him agree to such plans after a night of drinking.

The sky is a beautiful blue and the air sharp and fresh when Dan steps out. He hugs himself as he barrels into Phil, whose waiting and dually wraps Dan in his arms.

“Can I surprise you,” Phil whispers into Dan’s hair.

They walk, holding hands, past sleeping houses and shadowed plants up onto the cliff. Dan is too sleepy to register the familiarity until white barked trees are twisting together and he finds himself clambering through them after Phil. _Of course_ , is the thought that strikes him, clear and bright, like the chime of a bell. _Of course_.

Phil doesn’t garden the roses. But he did find them too and made it his month’s mission to discover the secret gardener, though Dan almost felt sorry he did. But when Phil shows him the photos he’d taken after asking permission, Dan relents. It’s beautiful, and magical. They watch the sun rise on the horizon, over the glittering sea. Dan leans on Phil like the two trees leaning over them, and Phil tells Dan the story. Sweet roses and sea salt fill the air; a bird chirps, and an early-morning plane flies overhead. They’re sat down, legs dangling, and they’re quiet, and when it happens it’s the most natural thing in the world for Phil to hook Dan’s foot to his and kiss him as the sun breaks through the clouds.


End file.
